Why Casino Gambling on Valentine’s Day?

It sucks to be lonely in a place like Vegas on a day like Valentine’s. Between Nick Cage’s on-film death wish by inebriation and Hunter S. Thompson’s 100%-real gun-to-head maneuver, we suspect that’s true.

Lucky for you, casinos are quite the reassuring presence that love can be won in so many mathematical odds. Minus the house edge, of course. Call it doubling down: you make money to spend on a date, and find a date to actually have the date with.

To an extent, casinos make a fuss of this saccharine day. Or any holiday, for that matter. Just for walking in, you might be handed something short and sweet, like a single rose. Take it; it’s free, and you’ll need flowers for your as-yet-imaginary date.

You’ll want to hit the slot floors first. Minimum wager games – like slots, video poker, keno – are where the casino’s giving away the cutesy lovey-dovey stuff (read: minor promo wins). X number of points will win you complimentary chocolates and candies. Your goal is to obtain those for later, and score extra bucks to move to bigger game.

At the gaming tables, where the stakes are higher, you can play for fancier things like free massages and salon treatments. If nothing else, give them to your mother. At higher-limit games, you can snag the Valentine big time: dinner for two, free hotel stay for two, vacation package for two. If nothing else, take your mother.

By the time you’re going for progressive jackpots or a poker showdown, trust that more than one foxy lady will be flashing a cleavage here, a bare leg there, for you. Whether or not they’re in it for love should be irrelevant until the morning after.

Unless you’re the world’s sorriest gambler (which might explain why you have no Valentine date, to begin with), we’d like to think you will have made money by dinnertime.

God willing you’ve found a date, take her where she can be serenaded by someone like Keith Urban, who’s playing in a casino on Valentine week. God forbid you haven’t, then we suppose it’s the best time to do something only lonely guys do on this occasion. Like Air Supply is playing in a different casino on the same week.

Don’t fret. After a good casino gambling workout, your dating choices will be endless. On Valentine’s Day, every place in Vegas will be headlined by the same dude: that quintessential ladies’ wooer of all – Elvis. Weddings will be easily packaged all-in; and expect that package to include casino gambling. After all, where else can you go after an evening of waxing romantic with a huge mistake?